Always Ready to Race

With the right training schedule, you can be race-fit throughout the year

With the right training schedule, you can be race-fit throughout the year and enjoy racing more often.

Training programs are often based on the premise of a base period, a pre-competitive period and a competitive peak period, when the athlete looks to race their absolute best within a specific date range. After the peak, the runner takes a rest period, then starts over with a long base phase to start preparing for the following year. This is how most elites, especially those who run the international summer track circuit, structure things. It certainly makes sense to point everything they do in a year to a few races over a few-week period when Olympic medals are on the line and national and world records are being run.

But what if you have no intentions of having a peak racing season, at least not the type the top professional athletes have? What if you want to race often, and well, throughout the year? What should your training look like if you want more of an endless season?

From my experience coaching beginners up to national champions and Olympians, I've noticed that they often race better in a pre-competitive training pattern than they do when they try to peak using all three phases. In many cases an athlete will race better going straight into a pre-competitive phase of training without spending the traditional two to three months solely focused on building a base phase. As an example, in the 2008 Olympic trials, Kara June placed sixth and ran a PR in the steeplechase on only 10 weeks of training in a pre-competition phase without any dedicated base work after coming off of a stress fracture.

In the traditional peaking approach, the pre-competitive stage follows the base period and is the stage where moderately intense workouts and a higher volume of mileage are combined with consistent racing to elevate the athlete's fitness. Consistent racing provides a fitness boost and important feedback on what's working and what needs attention in the training program. This is a phase that most every competitive runner enjoys. Runners are able to run a good amount of weekly mileage, they run their core meat-and-potato workouts that help promote confidence and they get to do the fun stuff--they get to race. It's not real fancy, but it works.

If you're in a perpetual racing season, you won't have new beginning segments dedicated solely to base-building. You'll still need a strong aerobic base, but you'll be developing it throughout the year amid periods of faster workouts and races.

TO RACE BETTER, RACE MORE

Many elites have prospered on this "endless season" approach. In the 1970s and early '80s, many runners would get themselves into pretty good shape, race fairly often and remain in this mode for months on end. Although these athletes had strong bases from which to draw, they didn't really have much of an offseason or a buildup base period; they always seemed to be fit and they showed it by racing often and placing well.

If you look at the resumes of some of the better U.S. runners of the era, such as Bill Rodgers and Greg Meyer, you'll see an incredible number of races throughout the years. Not all were top-level races; in many cases they were low-key fun runs. But races were part of their overall training program, and it worked well for them. Why did they race so often? They probably didn't think too much about it; odds are they just liked to race and they adapted their training around that reality.

I receive a number of messages from runners looking for feedback on their detailed training plans as they prepare for a coming race, usually a marathon. The one thing I rarely see in their plans is consistent racing. I see four to six months of carefully planned workouts, but zero races; they're in constant base-building mode. The first thing I suggest is scheduling a race at least once every two to four weeks to provide feedback on how their training and fitness are progressing. Racing provides immediate feedback. Racing lets you know if you're heading down the right path or if what you're doing needs a tweak.

Do you need to race every week? Probably not, but a race every two to three weeks helps immensely. Additionally, racing is a skill, and to become proficient at any skill, you need to practice it repeatedly to show improvement. If your goal is to earn a particular place or run a specific time in a race, it only makes sense to run lead-up races to help you achieve those goals.

ENDLESS SEASON

TRAINING COMPONENTS

So, what types of runs form the nucleus of an endless season training approach? The key ones are:

Running fitness that leads to faster times is generally based on a continuum. All running speeds from fast to slow speeds and every major speed in between should be addressed consistently to see any significant progress in race times for the vast majority of athletes. Training in the above fashion addresses all of the major components that make up competitive fitness, which results in a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats scenario. That is, raising the capacity in each key area of fitness concurrently results in greater overall fitness gains than can be gained by focusing on one area exclusively.

Let's break down the seven components above and explore them in further detail:

MIDWEEK INTERVALS: 1500m–10K of intervals at roughly 95 percent or faster of your current 5K race pace. These are the meat-and-potato workouts that define a competitive distance runner: repeats of 200m–1600m with a rest interval. We generally break these down into short intervals of 200–400s run at 1500m–5K pace with a half-to full-distance jog recovery, or longer intervals of 800m–1600m at 5K–10K race pace with a recovery jog of one quarter to one half the repeat distance. Regardless of event distance we usually alternate each week; week one includes short intervals while the second week features long intervals.

RACE OR ANAEROBIC THRESHOLD RUN: Sustained, unbroken effort at 85–95 percent of your current 5K pace. This would be classified as the faster, shorter tempo run. The anaerobic threshold run is usually 20–40 minutes in length. A 5K–10K race certainly works here in place of this workout if you choose to do so.

MID-WEEK LONGER AEROBIC THRESHOLD RUN: Total run distance is roughly 15 percent of your weekly mileage, so it's the second longest run of the week, with a significant portion of the closing stages at a strong, steady-state effort. The last 40–60 minutes or so are at about 75–85 percent of your current 5K pace, so definitely not easy, but not over the top either. A runner who generally performs a 20-minute tempo at 6:00 per mile pace would run the last 40 minutes or so of this run at 6:40 pace.

MAINTENANCE RUNS: The 30-to 60-plus-minute runs at 65–75 percent of your current 5K race pace that make up a lot of your weekly mileage. The runner completing a shorter faster tempo run at 6:00 pace would perform this run at roughly 7:10 pace.

WEEKEND EASY LONG RUN WHEN NOT RACING: Longer run, easy to moderate, at roughly the same pace as the maintenance run, so 65–75 percent of your current 5K race pace. The distance is roughly 20–25 percent of your weekly mileage. With the midweek longer run at such a high level and the weekend tempo run at a good clip, it makes sense to keep this mellow. Also, the traditional weekend long run isn't as sacred as one would think. If you miss a weekend long run because of a race, don't stress it; the midweek longer run has you covered.

TRUE RECOVERY DAY: This is the most important day for the week for people reading this article and the one most type-A runners skip. Run at 60–65 percent of your current 5K race pace, which would be easy jogging for most everyone. This can also be a day off, or you could go for a walk, hike or cross-train. All physiological gains are made during rest and recovery. Rest is part of training, rather than an absence of training, so don't try to make up extra ground by running too fast or too far this day. If you're not improving or not improving as fast as you'd like, a lack of a true recovery day or two each week is the likely cause.

STRIDES OR ACCELERATIONS: 50–150m efforts at 400–800m race pace. Done smooth and fast, but without straining. These help develop speed, improve form and build lower leg strength. If you can do these barefoot or in flats on grass, great, but on the street in your trainers is also good if that's what you have available. These are usually incorporated within the warm-up routine on harder workout days.

HOW WOULD THESE COMPONENTS FIT INTO A NORMAL TRAINING WEEK?

BASIC WEEKLY STRUCTURE #1

SUNDAY

Easy long run

MONDAY

Easy run

TUESDAY

Maintenance run

WEDNESDAY

Intervals

THURSDAY

Midweek long run

FRIDAY

Recovery day

SATURDAY

Tempo run or race; maintenance run if racing Sunday

BASIC WEEKLY STRUCTURE #2Best for those who race cross country or track races primarily on Saturday.

SUNDAY

Easy long run

MONDAY

Maintenance run

TUESDAY

Short intervals

WEDNESDAY

Midweek long run

THURSDAY

Recovery day

FRIDAY

Tempo run if not racing on weekend; maintenance run if racing on weekend

SATURDAY

Race or maintenance run if racing Sunday

Here's a more detailed application of these workouts. The workouts listed are the main workout of the day; add easy runs of 25 to 35 minutes on days you want to double, starting with your hard workout days first.

Midweek longer run of 75–90 minutes. First 3–4 miles easy, last 30–40 minutes at progressive effort finishing at 80 percent of 5K effort at fastest.

FRIDAY

Recovery day. 25–30 minutes easy jog, or take day off completely. Can substitute walk, hike or swim.

SATURDAY

Easy 50–60 minutes + 6–8 x 80–100m shakeout strides.

SUNDAY

5K–10K race

ENDLESS SEASON INTENSITY

One interesting thing about the endless season approach is that a runner can train in this manner for quite a while and improve significantly if they approach it properly in terms of intensity. This isn't a phase where you hammer any and all workouts and races; this phase is about keeping things controlled, both in workouts and races. It's about consistency and self-control. It's a long-term approach, an approach of letting the fitness come to you instead of trying to force the issue.

On a scale of 1–4, with 4 being hardest in terms of mental and physical energy devoted to workouts and races, this stage is about staying in the 2–3 range for as long as you wish. Efforts of 4 are saved for peaking, and that's where most run into problems. They start the season at a 4 intensity, they hammer most everything, plateau very early in the season and fade when the key events arrive. They're in a competitive peaking phase from the get-go, and that usually means they run their best times very early in the season, fail to improve much and lose their enthusiasm.

A key component in making an endless season program successful is to keep workouts at the correct effort. This is done best by referencing a comparison chart after key races to determine what your workout paces should be. Via websites or books, Greg McMillan, Jack Daniels and J. Gerry Purdy offer excellent ones. These will help set the workout efforts where they should be. Once your fitness improves, your race times will drop and when they do, these charts will show faster workout paces. In this way the athlete is rewarded with faster workouts by racing faster. It allows the fitness to come to the athlete, it keeps things longer-term and it helps keep the athlete from forcing workouts to make races happen.

Races in the endless season phase are approached in a more modest, less stressful manner. Not every race is the Olympic final; many you do to see where you're at. In most cases, you work on an aspect of a race that needs attention, which is usually the last third of the race distance. In a 5K, for example, you'd run controlled the first 2 miles, then see how many people you can pass the last mile. Occasionally you really reach to get a performance, but that's not the norm. Generally the races are about 85–90 percent effort.

Once an athlete has a solid background of training and racing in the endless season phase, they're only a few short weeks away from a peak level of performance if they choose to go that route. If the athlete doesn't have a key race they're shooting for, they can train and race in an endless season manner and develop nicely over a long period of time without much of a break.

PEAKING AND THE ENDLESS SEASON

Say you want to lay it on the line at race X in the future to see how fast you can really run. In this case, you would move your workouts into peaking/competitive phase mode. The workouts would become more event-specific.

The interval workouts would not only be done harder than in the endless season phase, but the reps would tend to be longer (e.g., 4 x 1600m at 5K pace vs. 8 x 800m at 5K pace). In some cases, the recoveries would be shortened (e.g., 6 x 1600m at 10K pace with a 400m recovery jog instead of an 800m jog). This phase of training is hard--you're looking to top off the tank by pushing the envelope.

You need to be in this stage of training for only four to eight weeks, then follow it with a one-to three-week taper and you'll be as ready as you can be for your event. On the 1–4 scale, the efforts in this stage are 3–4 for nearly all workouts and races. Most people have a limited emotional window, the amount of time an athlete can effectively push themselves and be focused properly on a goal race, usually four to eight weeks. Anything beyond that and the athlete tends to plateau, they start to get tired, they lose energy and they start to lose confidence. If the athlete stays in the four-to eight-week range, they tend to be on the upswing in terms of fitness and confidence, which is ideal for a top-level performance.

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